Trump’s Muslim Ban could have doomed Apple

If you subscribe to the butterfly effect—the idea that a tiny change in one part of the world can have massive side effects elsewhere—then you know that a President Donald Trump in 1949 (as opposed to President Truman) and an executive order banning immigration from Syria, could have meant that one of the most successful companies of all time, Apple, might never have existed at all.

Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs, who was adopted shortly after his birth in 1955, was born to Abdul Fattah Jandali, and Joanne Carol Schieble. The two met while students at the University of Wisconsin.

Jandali, however, was born in Syria in 1931, and emigrated from Beirut in 1949. He was, in other words, a Syrian National.

Under President Trump’s new executive order, banning immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries including Syria, Jandali would likely have been barred from entering the United States. Without that trip, he would've never attended University of Wisconsin, or met and fell in love with fellow student Schieble. It’s also unlikely that the pair would’ve, as Walter Isaacson’ Steve Jobs biography recalls, been able to travel back to Syria in 1954 as a couple. Schieble discovered she was pregnant with the future Apple founder shortly after that trip.

This is, to be clear, a somewhat different argument than the one that’s been made about Jobs' heritage since the start of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2011. Many including renegade artist Banksy, have depicted Jobs himself as a Syrian refugee, a possibility if Jandali and Schieble had remained in Syria through her pregnancy. However, what we’re considering here is Jobs' very existence.

A person of his singular talent and intellect could conceivably build Apple anywhere, but if Jandali never makes it to the U.S., he never meets Schieble, and they never conceive Steve Jobs. No Jobs. No Apple. No Apple, no Mac. No Mac, no graphics user interface revolution (it might have been delayed by at least five years). No Jobs' return to Apple in 1997, no iPhone. You get the picture.

Obviously, it’s not 1949 or 1955. And a President Trump in the middle of the last century might have banned immigration from an entirely different set of countries. In the real 1950, Congress tried to deport immigrants who were members of the communist party. President Truman vetoed the act.

Steve Jobs never met Jandali and, according to Isaacson, showed little interest in his Syrian heritage or the crisis unfolding there in 2011 while he was still alive:

When the Middle East would come up in conversation, the topic did not engage him or evoke his typical strong opinions, even after Syria was swept up in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising. ‘I don’t think anybody really knows what we should be doing there,’ he said when I asked whether the Obama administration should be intervening more in Egypt, Libya and Syria. ‘You’re fucked if you do and you’re fucked if you don’t.

It’s hard to know if Steve Jobs would've come out as strongly against the “Muslim Ban” as Apple’s current CEO Tim Cook, who, according to a report, wrote in an email: “Apple would not exist without immigration, let alone thrive and innovate the way we do.”

The “what if” mental exercise is worthwhile, though, as a small reminder of what might and could be.

Why? Because the world’s greatest minds aren't confined to a set of contiguous states, a country or even continent. They come from every background, often seeking the opportunity to put their capabilities to good use. Blanket immigration bans and those based on religious affiliation will undoubtedly block future innovators, entrepreneurs and, just maybe, the next Steve Jobs, to say nothing of his or her parents.